The present invention is directed to a method of making an incendiary warhead, the resulting product and more particularly where the incendiary material of the warhead is a mixture of metal and epoxy material.
During the Vietnam and Mid East conflicts, it became obvious that fuel fires, whether in ground vehicles or aircraft, can be a significant factor in obtaining a catastrophic kill. The inclusion of incendiaries and other like materials in munitions to obtain fires has resulted in specific rounds of ammunition and warheads being developed to obtain this effect. However, when it was desired to incorporate an incendiary into an existing piece of ammunition to take advantage of the additional incendiary effect, this could not easily be accomplished without a major redesign.
In general incendiaries when used in more typical munitions present serious safety problems. There is a possibility of premature explosion due to the setback effect. For example, if the incendiary material shifts longitudinally during the firing of the munitions, premature detonation can take place. Another safety difficulty is the rotational forces induced in the munitions material due to rifling to cause an angular change again prematurely inducing detonation. Finally, from a storage standpoint, many incendiaries are not compatible; in other words, they are chemically active with respect to explosive materials. If protective coatings are used for the incendiaries then this may raise the foregoing safety problems.
One type of incendiary having the foregoing defects is mishmetal; in fact its use has been banned by a committee of the Department of Defense of the U.S. Government.
As will be discussed in detail below, Quantic Industries, the assignee of the present application has offered for sale for more than a year before the present filing an improved incendiary material of a quasi alloy zirconium type under the trademark QAZ. In use, however, it was only molded into shapes such as booster adapters, fuzes, and spacer rings (which are parasitic components of a munition) and fixed into place as by threading.